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Friday 24 June 2016

How to achieve the PERFECT winged eyeliner look! Tutorial, review and eyeliner swatches!

Winged eyeliner: The enemy of the beauty world. 

Lets all be straight here, winged eyeliner when done right looks amazing. It adds shape, length and accentuates any eye colour. Winged liner acts as a barrier to hide false lashes, opens and brightens the eye and when done neatly makes you look effortlessly glamorous.

BUT. It's not easy! Getting that perfect sharp line, curving slightly at the outer corner, is difficult. Almost everyday someone creates a new tool or beauty fad to help with this process, but using these gadgets and tools often just ends in tears (which then result to smudged panda eyes instead!)

I feel like i have tried almost every type of liner going. They range from soft pencil khols, hard pencil khols, gels, liquids, felt tips, you name it, it probably exists!

Illustrations by Kathy Wyatt for Max Factor

Reviews and Swatches

My personal preference, to get that sharp clean wing, is to use a liquid liner. These are the least likely of the liners to smudge, and often contain the most colour pigment too. Having said that, the liquid liner is probably one of the most tricky eyeliners to use. The tips are usually so precise that it's difficult to get a straight line without any lumps and bumps along the way.

Over the past year, i have been rotating the same few eyeliners, trying to decide my favourite, but recently have discovered a gem in the beauty market!

I love the blackness and matte(ness) style of the Maybelline Master Ink Satin Liquid Liner, (£4.99) but it smudges very easily in the corners, and as it's hayfever season, this is not suitable! I will continue to wear this, but probably in winter when all the pollen subsides. The tip is quite chunky, so it's not perfect to create thin lines, but is great as an overall day to day liner.

I also love the Rimmel Glam Eyes Liquid Liner. (£5.29) It is fairly long lasting, and not as smudgy. Also the tip is so skinny, yet really flexible, so you can get that perfect wing without worrying the tip is going to ping back any second, and ruin what you have spent ages trying to achieve! I feel like i run out of this eyeliner very quickly. I have to scoop alot of the product onto my brush, and 2 months in, it starts running out! 

Poundland, have created a makeup range called Make Up Gallery and i had heard good things about their liner. The Pro Liquid Eyeliner (£1) is amazing. I am currently working with poundland, as a makeup ambassador however this has no influence on my decision at all. I have worn winged liner for almost 7 years straight now and i still struggle sometimes! and have honestly been unable to find a favourite until now.


It has the matte qualities of the Maybelline Liner, and the tip preciseness of the Rimmel Glam Eyes.
It lasts for around 7 hours, on unprimed eyelids, and 9-10 on primed lids. This is perfect, as you can put it on before work in the morning, and know that you will not be coming home with black rings around your eyes.


The only downside to this liner, is the bottle. I feel like i'm going to run out of this product very very quickly. However it's £1, so i could buy 5 for the price of the Rimmel one! They also sell it in bundles of 12, for £12. Which is currently temping me already!


Winged Liner Tutorial & Tips

This image has only been edited to brighten the eyeball, the makeup itself is completely untouched and real!

Step 1: Prime your eyelid. You can use whatever you prefer! I used the Maybelline Fit Me concealer all over the lid and undereye, then set it with a plain cream shadow.

Step 2: Slowly and carefully draw long lines across the eye creating a base for the liner. You do not need to do anything wing related yet! This can be thickened later and doing it in small steps like this helps, especially if you have shaky hands.

Step 3: Fill in the gaps between the lines to create a nice thin line across the eye.

Step 4: Depending on how you want the wing to be, draw a small straight line, emerging from the outer corner of your eye. I usually point my line in the direction of the top of my ear. If you have small round eyes, and want to extend them, draw this line a little longer. If you already have big eyes, you can keep the line smaller. 

Step 5: Work out how thick you want the wing to be, and draw a straight line heading back towards your eye. I personally try to keep this line as horizontal with my eye as possible, as it helps join it to the liner much more easily.

Step 6: Join your lines together slowly and carefully. If you have hooded eyes like me, try shutting your eye and lifting your eyebrows as high as possible, this flattens the skin! Also doing one swift movement from line to line instead of tiny little ones, helps it look smoother.

Step 7: Fill in any gaps!

Step 8 (optional): I like a full liner look sometimes, so i go across my waterline too. I find that using a liquid liner in a waterline is quite a tricky process. If you get it in your eye, a watery mess begins to happen! I try and keep it on my lower section of the waterline, and don't take it down any further than the bottom eyelashes.

Step 9: Add false lashes (or mascara) to complete the look!


Tips:
  • If you apply foundation, primer or moisturiser before winged eyeliner, if you make any mistakes it's easier to smudge away with your finger than on dry skin.
  • You can use concealer on any thin brush or cotton bud of your choice to really make that line clean and sharp
  • Make sure you give your liner brush a little scrape before using it. Too much = messy disaster, Too little = bumpy uneven line
  • If you want to make your eyes look extra 'cat eye' like, when drawing around the inner corner, drag both lines further than you would and join together.
  • If you like experimenting with fun colours, applying a wet eyeshadow (of any colour) ontop of the black is so easy, and you don't have to bother creating the wing again!




Thankyou for reading this post! Let me know what you think of this liner in the comments below!
Chloe 






Friday 17 June 2016

Morphe products - Are they really worth the hype?! Honest Review + Swatches

Morphe seems to be one of the latest brands currently storming the beauty world. With over 2.8 million followers on Instagram and stockists all over the world, it was hard to resist posting a full length review on whether or not this hype was really necessary!

If you haven't heard of Morphe by now, they sell variations of makeup palettes and brushes, and have now expanded there range to lip creams, concealers and more!

REVIEW AND SWATCHES



My first ever Morphe purchase was over a year ago! The classic 35W palette, filled with 35 warm toned neutral eyeshadow shades, varying from creams and browns to blacks, purples and oranges.


I have always loved this palette. It cost me £15.95 which i though was a reasonable price for 35 large pans of colour. I found the shadows to blend nicely and the colour pay off was nice too. I occasionally use Fix Plus, to brighten up some of the metallic colours as certain ones had less pigmentation than others, but to be honest i use fix plus with any metallic shadow i ever use!

After wearing this palette to death, and playing around with eye looks over on Instagram, i was kindly sent a package by the Morphe Team, containing all different palettes and brushes. I am not being paid to write good things nor to promote there products! I am writing this review as a honest customer (also a very lucky one!).

My Top 3 from the Palette.

The 35B palette is completely the opposite to any neutral palette you will ever see. I personally think this palette contains every single colour that you would have missing from your collection. The colours range from blacks and whites to all different shades of greens, purples,
reds and more!



I also love this palette. It is mostly matte however the couple of shimmer colours that are in the palette need that spray of Fix Plus to really pop. I can't really fault this palette, for the prize and size it's really efficient!



Moving onto possibly the companies most popular seller, the brushes. 

I have been testing the brushes for over 3 months now (almost everyday). A few of the brushes are hit and miss. When i first begun using them, i noticed a few were shedding bristles, which i had never encountered before. This was mildly annoying but luckily over time, the shedding stopped, and i haven't had any hairs fall out in over 2 months.

Some brushes i have found less use for, however others have become my holy grails, and have joined my trusty Nanshy brushes in my all time favourite brushes!

I particularly love the (MB23 and the M462). The MB23 is the biggest, fluffiest, EASIEST, blending brush i have ever used (knocks about 5 minutes of arm ache off a smokey eye!)

MB23
M462


MAKEUP LOOKS USING MORPHE

Using the Morphe 35W Palette!

Morphe 35B Palette

Morphe 35W Palette


I rate this brand, i really do! The qualitys of the shadows are not quite at the top with Too Faced, but definitely come next in my opinion, and second place is oh so fine by me!

I think for the price you pay, and the fact that they stock regularly on UK sites, is worth it! The pans are large, and there are so many different palettes there are colours available for everyone. I have also tried the blush and bronze palettes which are unreal. The quality of these is even better than the shadows, and these range usually at between £15 and £20. Also certain brushes (hint hint MB23) have made my life complete!

Have a little nosy around Beauty Bay, they stock alot of the Morphe collection:
http://www.beautybay.com/morphebrushes/   

Thankyou so much for reading. How have you found Morphe as a company? Let me know below!



Chloe